Patrick Brown quits Ontario PC leadership race
The ousted former Progressive Conservative leader has abandoned his comeback bid to lead the party.
Former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown after a January press conference at Queen's Park. Brown entered the party's leadership after stepping down and on Monday pulled out of the race. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star)
By
Robert Benzie Queen's Park Bureau Chief
Kristin Rushowy Queen's Park Bureau
Rob Ferguson Queen's Park Bureau
Mon., Feb. 26, 2018
Ousted former Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown has abandoned his comeback attempt to lead the party.
Six hours after the Star posted a
story about his apparent involvement in a Tory candidate nomination being investigated by Hamilton police, Brown announced Monday afternoon he was giving up his campaign for the PC helm.
“I simply cannot run a provincial party leadership campaign … while at the same time continuing my fight to prove that the allegations are lies. You simply cannot shoot on two nets at the same time,” he said.
That’s a reference to the Jan. 24 CTV News report about two women who alleged sexual misconduct against him when they were 19 years old and he was a Conservative MP.
In a four-page letter to party brass, Brown admitted his latest leadership bid was “a source of distraction” as the Tories gear up to fight Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in the June 7 election.
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His departure came before the final all-candidates’ debate in Ottawa on Wednesday night.
It leaves former MPP Christine Elliott, ex-Toronto councillor Doug Ford, rookie PC candidate Caroline Mulroney, and social conservative activist Tanya Granic Allen as the remaining leadership hopefuls.
Last week, the Star
revealed the provincial integrity commissioner was querying Brown about rental income on his $2.3 million Lake Simcoe home, on which he has a $1.72 million mortgage despite earning $180,000 a year.
That prompted Mulroney on
Friday to say “our party is in crisis” because the ex-leader was putting his personal ambitions first.
“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen allegations of misconduct, wrongdoing and fighting within our party,” she said at the time.
“(Thursday) night, I learned Patrick Brown is under investigation by the integrity commissioner, proving once again that these distractions have no place in the leadership race. I hope that he does the right thing for the party and steps aside.”
Brown, 39, was originally forced to
quit as Tory leader on Jan. 25 after the CTV News report.
He has filed a libel notice against CTV News, calling the story “false” and saying it subjected him to “ridicule, hatred and contempt.”
The Simcoe North MPP, who now sits as an Independent after being ejected from the Tory caucus, called on CTV to retract and apologize for “false, malicious, irresponsible and defamatory” stories that accused him of improprieties involving inebriated teens while he was sober.
CTV News said Saturday it “stands by its reporting and will actively defend its journalism in court.”
Brown stunned Tories when he
announced on Feb. 16 — just two hours before the deadline for entry — that he was jumping into the leadership race again.
“I think my name has been cleared and now it’s about getting Ontario back on track,” he said that day as he was chased by reporters from PC headquarters on Adelaide St. to a taxi.
At the time, he said the party had been “hijacked” and his moderate People’s Guarantee election platform — unveiled to great fanfare last November — abandoned.
His confidence that day was in stark contrast to his tearful 81-second news conference at Queen’s Park on Jan. 24, hours before resigning in a caucus call with other PC MPPs.
Interim Tory leader Vic Fedeli finally kicked him out of caucus on Feb. 16, several hours before Brown joined the leadership race.
Fedeli said Monday the ex-leader made “the right decision for himself and the Ontario PC Party.”
Last week, Tory MPP Randy Hillier launched a
complaint with the integrity commissioner about Brown’s finances and raised questions about several overseas trips the leader took.
Brown has dismissed Hillier’s complaint as “garbage.”
In a statement Monday, the office of J. David Wake said the independent legislative watchdog “is conducting an inquiry under” a section of the Members’ Integrity Act.
“The inquiry is in response to a request from Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, about Patrick Brown, MPP Simcoe North,” the commissioner’s office adding Wake would “have no further comment about the inquiry.”
Once his probe is concluded, a report will be filed to Speaker Dave Levac.
Brown’s 23-year-old on-again-off-again girlfriend, who accompanied him on some of the foreign travel, has
rallied to his side.
“It is wrong how the media has treated him,” Genevieve Gualtieri said in a text message to the Star, noting Brown “is one of the most respectful, decent and caring individuals I have ever met.”
“You can ask any questions you want but I have no interest in participating in an attack on a good man,” she said.
In his four-page missive, Brown called Gualtieri “my partner” and said he wanted to protect her and his parents and sisters from further “attacks.”
“She never signed up to be in the public eye yet she ended up on the front page of the Toronto Star,” he said of his girlfriend, a former Tory intern.
“We never dated during the brief time that she worked at Queen’s Park for another MPP. Nor did we travel together while she worked there. We had an on and off relationship because of the nature of my job … throughout it all her family always recognized the special bond we have and encouraged us to work through the hard days.”
Brown said his ordeal “has brought us closer together.”
The drama comes against the backdrop of a looming PC leadership and a June 7 provincial election.
Online voting for the Tory leadership starts this Friday and continues until March 8 with the winner announced March 10 at the Hilton Markham Convention Centre on Warden Ave. in Markham.
Some 20 nominated Tory candidates and three sitting MPPs — Toby Barrett, Rick Nicholls, and Ross Romano — backed Brown’s leadership bid.
But most of the PC caucus was supportive of Fedeli’s move to banish him and did not want him in the race.
MPP Todd Smith — who co-chairs Elliott’s leadership campaign — said the tumult around Brown has stolen the spotlight from the PC race.
“Let’s be honest, the air has been sucked out of this campaign because of all of the stories that have been swirling around Patrick Brown. It’s difficult for anyone to get any kind of traction because of the circus-type of atmosphere that’s been created by the Patrick Brown story.”